1262 Caution
Ryu was surprisingly calm by this "sudden" breakthrough that wasn't much of a breakthrough at all. It was more accurate to characterize it as a novel application of an ability that he already had, at the same time, his vision for what the Earth Character could be and accomplish widened tremendously.
He had already gained a unique appreciation for his Founding Dao, and he also gave some credit to the Origin Flame.
One would have thought that in this sort of situation, he would have to go down to the wire to find a solution to his immediate predicament. However, only a couple minutes of his three to four hours time limit had been used before he found a solution.
What was especially impressive was how his mind had jumped from thought to thought seamlessly, trying each one with ease. Usually, people had a habit of sticking to the first idea they thought of, finding it difficult to step outside of the box they had created for themselves. This was why the most intelligent people weren't usually those who just knew the most, the most intelligent individuals were the same individuals with the most intellectual plasticity. The flexibility of the mind was the true measure of IQ.
Just thinking felt so comfortable to him, it didn't feel like it took any effort at all. The world felt brighter and everything felt like it was at his fingertips.
Ryu's thoughts shifted away from the impressiveness of his feat. He wasn't one to linger on his victories and at the moment, he had far more important things to do.
His Nine Pillars had an overall stabilizing effect on the void around him, making it far easier for him to remain within. However, this time still wasn't indefinitely, it was rooted in the stamina of his body.
The good news was that his bodily stamina could be easily replenished by his Embryonic Qi. What couldn't be easily replenished, though, was the Focus Qi required to keep it activated. His Focus Qi was draining quite slowly, but within a month or two he would be entirely tapped out. If he included the improvement to his Focus Qi that would come after he concocted more Soul Nourishing Pills, he might be able to last up to a year if he really pushed it.
The real question was whether or not a year would be enough.
The vastness of this place was impossible to fathom. Even if Ryu was given millions of years, it wouldn't be enough to explore it all. Plus, that didn't mention the fact that the inheritance was moving around, so even if by some miracle he would search everywhere in just a single year, there was still a non-zero chance that he could very well never find the inheritance.
Even so, Ryu was still almost eerily calm. He had always been a calm person in general, even when he faced death, but the current him felt even calmer than usual. It was a subtle feeling, almost as though the title of Founding Dao and the weight that came with it was steadily feeding him the demeanor and arrogance of all those who had held such a title in the past.
Ryu took a step forward. Standing here indefinitely wouldn't get him anything.
His mind was spinning with thoughts. Finding the inheritance wouldn't be as impossible as it seemed only because of, precisely, the Nine Pillars.
Ryu was very familiar with the aura of the Nine Pillars and he could see nodes for thousands of miles around him. All he had to do was spot the spatial node that carried this unique aura. Although it would be difficult as a thousand miles was nothing given the span of this ocean, it still wasn't as helpless as it had seemed in the beginning.
This also didn't mention the fact that Ryu was also quite confident in spotting spatial nodes that had recently been disrupted by the inheritance as well. If he followed their trail, spotting the inheritance wouldn't be difficult either.
Beyond that, Ryu was curious what he could find down here.
Truthfully, Ryu wasn't a fool, he knew that anything that could survive down here wouldn't be so easy to lay his hands on. He might very well come across many treasures that he could only stare at from a distance.
That said, who said that this would be the only time he could come here? Now that he had what could almost be said to be a personal doorway, so long as he gained enough power and strength, or thought of external means, he would be able to slowly benefit over time.
What Ryu was most looking forward to were the kind of Water Qi Natural Treasures that could appear here. There was no doubt that any such treasure would be incredibly special.
There was, of course, the chance that a powerful flame might appear as well. That's because when things reach an absolute extreme, they tend toward their opposites, something that Ryu was intimately familiar with.
However, he had no way of knowing this for sure.
Ryu began to descend with great speed. He wanted to find the bottom of the ocean, the true bottom. If there was anything to be found, it would either be at the barrier of ice above, or the ground below, it would be much rarer for treasures to appear floating aimlessly in the middle.
Ryu didn't even bother trying to go upward because that would just be seeking death. Even if a treasure appeared that, trying to get it would be nothing short of suicide. If even a single strand of that cold touched him he would be finished, no amount of escaping into the void would save him.
The journey was unsurprisingly smooth though Ryu tried to be cautious. Although the Favor Alchemy Sky God's words had made it pretty clear that it was almost impossible for creatures to survive done here, wasn't he here? Hadn't the Nine Pillar Flame Sect made it down here? He simply had no way of knowing for sure.
Of course, the Sect had done most of the heavy lifting for his presence here, but it was a fact that he was here nonetheless.
Suddenly, Ryu's brows raised and his caution shot through the roof.
